The Unforgiven
by Mystik Surreality
Summary: Dawn always comes, even to the most evil of nights. Leon had to learn that lesson... from one who’s dawn hadn’t yet come yet. [DaggerLeon]


**The Unforgiven  
-Mystik Surreality-  
  
**

AN// Well, they seem to be my favorite couple these days. ^^; Another Dagger/Leon. *chuckles* Ah well. It's not exactly a love ficlet, but it's them growing closer... and appreciating the pain they've both felt.  
  
Summary// Dawn always comes, even to the most evil of nights. Leon had to learn that lesson... from one who's dawn hadn't yet come yet. [Dagger/Leon]  
  
  
******|******|******  
  
Leon stared up at starry sky. It was cold, and cloudy. But it was a sky like none other, because it was so like the one he'd left behind.  
  
He tensed when he heard footsteps approaching his little utopia, but he didn't protest when a lithe body sat down next to him and stared up at the sky... his sky. She hugged her arms as if she was cold but she said nothing, did not even meet his eyes.   
  
He opened his mouth to curse at her, or send her away with a cutting remark when she looked at him and he saw in her eyes the same pain that he felt. The words died on his tongue.   
  


**Lay beside me  
Tell me what they've done  
  
**

He gently took her arm and pulled her down in the grass beside him. She shook and he saw crystal tears escaping the corners of her eyes. Was she remembering the world she'd left behind even now?  
  
"Tell me." he spoke simply. She tensed, but when she began to speak her words were clear and strong. They did not quiver like her small body did next to his. She spoke of the beauty of her town, Alexandria, of her friends and her people.  
  
He started. She'd been a queen in her world.  
  
But her laments were of those she'd lost, and that she had survived. She was like him in that. Neither wanted to survive without those they'd come to love as their family.   
  
He took her hand in his and gave it a small squeeze. She didn't look at him, not until her shaking finally stopped. Her face was tear-stained when she looked at him, but she was more beautiful for all her sorrows.  
  


**Speak the words I want to hear  
To make my demons run  
  
**

Then she told him of the final moments... of the horrors of her escape. He shivered as her words recounted almost exactly his own escape. She'd survived them, though, as he had.   
  
They'd survived so many of the same trials, the same horrors... she was someone who knew why he kept himself bottled up in his own mind.   
  
But her pain was far more raw that his, and her demons still very real. He shifted towards her and touched her shoulder. She still shook, partly from the cold and partly from reliving the horror.   
  
But that was a step in the healing, he realized. He'd been there... but he'd retreated before his own memories. He'd retreated before her death.   
  
He'd sworn off friendship, and especially love, since then.   
  
She had taken that step towards healing... could he?  
  


**The door is locked now  
But it's open if you're true  
  
**

She looked at him, dusting at her eyes. "Thank you, Leon... thank you for listening."   
  
He forced a smile. "Will you listen to me?" he asked after a long silence. She smiled warmly, full of her own sorrow, but knowing how sincere of a question that was.   
  
"Yes."   
  
So he spoke to her, and his mind and heart began to open bit by bit.   
  


**If you can understand the me  
I can understand the you  
  
**

Her earnest, faint smiles. Her understanding. That was what took to reduce him to tears of his own as he recounted horrible deaths and the end of his home world. The grip he had on her hand tightened, and her other hand found the heaving rise and fall of his chest.  
  
Her touch didn't bother him, either. Another sign that he understood her, and she understood him.   
  
He finally ran out of words, and she laid next to him for the hours (minutes?) it took them both to compose themselves. She sat up first, followed by him with his hands around her waist and head pillowed on her shoulder.   
  
No words were exchanged, but enough passed between them without words that neither saw need to speak.   
  


**Lay beside me  
Under wicked sky  
  
**

He felt a drop of rain on his head, then another.   
  
"It's going to rain." he murmured into her hair. She nodded slightly, but resisted when he tried to help her stand.   
  
"I want to stay and watch the storm." she said, but her look asked him to stay with her. He nodded and they settled back by to watch the rain and thunder.  
  
She settled against him, head pillowed on one of his arms and around her shoulders. He found he didn't mind, and that her breathing was soothing against the deafening storm.   
  


**The black of day  
Dark of night  
We share this paralyze  
  
**

They both began to understand that life is what it is, and horrible things happen. The deathly beauty of the storm was testament to that, but they faced it with interest and no fear though it was very possible for them both to die here.  
  
They weren't afraid anymore, and yet they were both terrified.   
  
A pair of blackened hearts, burned by life's wicked hand... but they had begun to heal. Through the dark of this storm, the dark of night, they were healing.  
  


**The door cracks open  
But there's no sun shining through  
  
**

He wasn't all warm sunshine, even as he healed. He had always been quiet and distant. As the storm died around them, both soaking wet they stood and looked at each other.   
  
She was a polite creature, and quiet as well. She could understand his need to hear the overtures of silence, once in awhile. She could very well be able to touch the core of his heart, to open that locked door... if he let her try.  
  


**Black heart scarring still  
But there's no sun shining through  
  
**

"I'll see you later." he murmured and left the small clearing, leaving her standing alone. He knew that she would be hurt... she very well wouldn't speak to him again.   
  
'Good.' he thought defiantly, though the small part of his heart that had dared to hope winced. He was running again, away from the thoughts of loving someone. He couldn't allow it, not when Traverse Town, or this world, could disappear any time now and he could be the lone survivor again.   
  
'Besides, she's already lost someone... she couldn't survive if she lost another lover.' he tried to comfort himself. He finally shook his head and stopped. 'Who are you, Leon? I don't recognize who I am anymore...'  
  


**What I've felt - what I've known  
Turn the pages, turn the stone  
  
**

He sighed and closed his eyes. He had known so much in his days, so much pain and trial. He felt so tired now, in retrospect.   
  
How could anyone expect him to move on, through that all... let alone to heal!   
  
But time passes, and physical wounds heal. Could emotions heal too?   
  
He turned that over in his mind. He didn't crumble anymore at every thought of Rinoa. Was that healing or strength?  
  


**Behind the door  
Should I open it for you?  
  
**

He paused and ran a hand through his hair. Dagger... she was so close to the point in his heart that had been Rinoa's since they'd fallen in love. But Rinoa was gone... was it right to allow that part to become Dagger's?   
  
They were so alike... but she was so fragile outwardly with a heart of tarnished gold. She could help him heal, should he allow her. He was sure of this now.  
  
But should he let her heal him? Was it insulting Rinoa's memory to grow closer to Dagger...   
  


**What I've felt - what I've known  
Sick and tired, I stand alone  
  
**

Alone... yes, he was alone. He had been alone since he'd come here. Oh, Aerith and Yuffie had tried to break his shell... neither knew was it was like. They're population had verily made it well intact. They had friends who had survived.  
  
They hadn't understood his haunted eyes.   
  
But her eyes were as haunted as his... they had that bond if nothing else. But she was also open, and truthful when it did't pain her to be so.   
  
Her pain was not an unbearable burden, to her. She would not allow it to crumble her.   
  
Could he stand alone under his own burden of grief for much longer? He doubted it.  
  


**Could you be there  
Cause I'm the one who waits for you  
  
**

"Leon."   
  
He tensed, then glanced at her. "You followed me."   
  
"Leon, I don't know how you feel about me... and I'm not sure how I feel about you..." she sighed. "But we both know how painful that loss is. We understand that much about each other."  
  
He tensed, then released that tension with a deep sigh. "I know, Dagger." he breathed. He closed his eyes and felt her hand on his shoulder.   
  
"I'm not ready to love again... I know that much. But could we at least be friends?" she asked him. He turned and looked down at her.   
  
Finally he nodded. "Friends... I haven't let anymore that close in a long time... but I think it's finally time." he put a hand on her shoulder.   
  
She smiled. "Maybe once we've both healed more..." she trailed off. "We'll wait until then, though."   
  


**Or are you unforgiven too?  
  
**

He slid that arm around her shoulders, both of them shivering from the wet. "We're a pair." he mumbled and she smiled sadly.  
  
"A pair of the forsaken." she whispered back.   
  
They were a pair, he mused. She was very right.   
  


**Lay beside me  
This won't hurt I swear  
  
**

As they walked, he shifted his arms around her.   
  
"Dagger... thank you." he mumbled. She smiled.   
  
"No thanks necessary. We're friends, Leon."   
  
Friendship... it had only hurt him before. But she was offering her hand as a friend, and perhaps more. He couldn't turn her down, could he? No, not honestly. Not now, anyway.   
  


**She loves me not  
She loves me still  
But she'll never love again  
  
**

Love... well that could come in time. Right now, both were swearing to themselves that they would never love again. That loving another would insult the memory of the deceased.   
  
When the reach the Inn, he allowed her to go first in the communal bathroom to get a warm shower. He sat gingerly on a bench in the hallway.   
  
She didn't love him. Not yet. But the candle was there to be li, if he finally decided to try with her.   
  
But for now, friendship was more than enough.  
  


**She'll lay beside me  
But she'll be there when I'm gone  
  
**

She reappeared quick enough and let him in to get his hot shower. He turned the water on and climbed in without barely a backwards though.   
  
'But we both know how painful that loss is. We understand that much about each other.' Her words echoed in his mind. Yes, they did understand pain and could understand each other because of it. He smiled slightly as he stepped out of the shower.   
  


**Black heart scarring darker still  
Yes she'll be there when I'm gone  
  
**

Toweling his hair, he dressed in a pair of dry clothes and retreated to his room. He couldn't sleep, though, and sat by his window.   
  
'We understand that much about each other.'   
  
But there was a world to understand about him. How could she know his darkest side? She was so engulfed in light.   
  
He suddenly felt the mental equivalent of a slap across the face. Of course she understands the darkness. She'd been lost in it as well, since she'd arrived.   
  
A small, content smile, rose from the knowledge that she at least understood him. If no one else did, then Dagger did.   
  


**Lay beside me  
Tell me what I've done  
  
**

A small knock at his door, too quiet to wake him had he been sleeping but enough to stir him from his chair and to the door. She stood there, hands clasped before her.   
  
"I ... I couldn't sleep... I'm sorry if I woke you but..." she stopped. "Can I stay with you for the rest of the night?"   
  
He nodded and let her in. She moved to take the chair he'd been sitting in before, but he caught her hand. "We can share the bed. It's large enough for two friends to share."   
  
She blushed faintly in the darkness, but they soon found themselves at opposite ends of the wooden bed and tucked in rather comfortably.   
  


**The door is closed  
So are your eyes  
  
**

Her breathing slowed, and he could see she had fallen asleep. He wondered what fears had haunted her to bring her to his door this night. He didn't care to ask, though.   
  
Let her enjoy her rest. He couldn't sleep, but he wasn't afraid... not anymore.   
  
His heart was still locked closed, but she had the key. And she knew how to open it.   
  


**But now I see the sun  
Now I see the sun  
  
**

As the dawn peaked in his window, he smiled broadly for the first time in a long time. The dawn to the darkest night, it was still a dawn. And it still came, no matter how dark the night.   
  
So, content, he curled up on his side of the bed and closed his eyes. The dawn of his own darkness hadn't come, but he could see the light on the horizon. It was only a matter of time.  
  



End file.
